Learning to Teach in Uncertainty: A Phenomenological Study

We are living in times of seismic shifts in the social landscape; this is the new normal. This study is about teachers and teacher education in times of change. It is concerned with the ways in which the rapid and intensive changes in the larger society ripple into schools and influence day-to day life in classrooms. And it is concerned about being a teacher in a world that is saturated by change and uncertainty, and its ramifications for preparing and educating teachers. In schools we catch sight of these changes, perhaps most visibly in flows of migrant children and youth, and their families and networks. Teachers and teacher educators are faced with persistent questions of how to think and act as educators in a way, which recognizes difference but does not create rigid notions of us and them. We need concepts that allow for fresh answers to emerge, and we need perspectives that allow for a posture and a bearing that can take and sustain the uncertainties of changing times. The project builds on the research I have been able to conduct on these questions, summarizes its insights and findings, poses the main questions that emerged, and plans to re-visit, re- examine and re-structure teacher interviews I have collected over the years for an analysis based on research methods of Phenomenology of Practice. With a critical stance toward the dominance of evidence-based and competence-based teacher education, the inquiry is guided by the question of what language and which vocabulary lends itself to speak about teachers knowing, being, acting, and becoming on shifting landscapes? These are questions of what it means to be a teacher, what to do, and how to become a teacher. It also has to do with the concepts, notions, words, and terms we use in our language when we discuss being and becoming a teacher. Words and vocabulary do not change everything, but they determine to a large extent what can be said and done because we have the words for it -, and what cannot be said and done, because we miss a language that helps us indicate what is missing. The project further aims to outline a course design for student teachers to research aspects of their own knowing and learning corresponding to the findings of this study. It would add to curriculum research by documenting and reporting on a probed didactical design for engaging spaces of student inquiry even within the confines of mass university education.

We are living in times of seismic shifts in the social landscape; this is 'the new normal'. This study is about teachers and teacher education in times of change. It is concerned with the ways in which the rapid and intensive changes in the larger society ripple into schools and influence day-to day life in classrooms. And it is concerned about being a teacher in a world that is saturated by change and uncertainty, and its ramifications for preparing and educating teachers. In schools we catch sight of these changes, perhaps most visibly in flows of migrant children and youth, and their families and networks. The inquiry takes note of the fact that teachers are challenged by the kind of diversity increasingly introduced into their classrooms, and that the growing challenge cries for answers. At the same time, it recognizes that presenting and proposing lists of what teachers ought to do fall too short of tackling the task at its roots. The questions driving the inquiry are 'What is it that needs to be seen and understood in order to be able to provide apt training, support measures and policies?' The project builds on the previous work of the researcher, summarizes its findings, re-examines and re-structures teacher interviews collected over the years for an analysis based on research methods of Phenomenology of Practice. It brings teachers, their experience and their voice into the forefront. Teacher stories in diverse classrooms tell us of being and acting in busy intersections with frequent collisions; collisions of identity and belonging, relations and cosmologies. The findings reveal multitude moments of uncertainty, doubt, perplexity, apprehension and confusion at these buzzing intersections. To articulate what it means to be and act as a teacher in the spaces of collision, tension and possibility of diverse classrooms, the inquiry puts forward the concept of pedagogical diversity tact. The purpose of raising the question of tact is not to come to a judgmental conclusion on the perceived tactfulness or the brusque tactlessness of a teacher in a given situation. Tact as a lens serves here as a zoom lens allowing to change smoothly from a long-shot of day to day classroom life to a close-up on specific moments of significance. We need concepts both in research and in professional development that help teachers pick out significant instances when they look back at what happened in class, to give them the opportunity to consider their interpretations of what happened, and to provide for spaces to cultivate wise pedagogical judgements for future action. The construct of pedagogical diversity tact as proposed in this project could serve the purpose.